How Wilder's Brigade Got Their Lightning

 

Heralded as a weapon you could "load on Sunday and fire all week," the acquisition of Spencer Repeating Rifles by Colonel John T. Wilder's brigade in the spring of 1863 proved to be the critical element of setting the stage for the unit becoming known as the Lightning Brigade. The new weapon featured both robust construction and a rapid rate of fire that gave the men a great advantage in combat. The Spencer's metallic cartridges, weather-proof and easy to load, also proved themselves during Tullahoma campaign in June 1863 where it rained for nearly a week. Wilder's men didn't have to worry about keeping their powder dry. 

After chasing General John H. Morgan’s troopers over half of southern Kentucky, Colonel John T. Wilder thought there had to be a better way to fight the war.

          The tipping point came on January 1, 1863, at the small crossroads of Bear Wallow, Kentucky. For the past several days, Wilder had been marching his brigade consisting of the 98^th Illinois, 17^th Indiana, 72^nd Indiana, 75^th Indiana, and 18^th Indiana Battery after Morgan’s marauding cavalrymen. Wilder heard gunfire in the distance and resolved to mount some of his men on the brigade’s mules and try to pursue Morgan that way. It proved a complete disaster as remembered by Corporal Benjamin F. Magee of the 72^nd Indiana.

Wilder's initial experiment with mounting his men atop the brigade's mules proved a mistake. The stubborn animals bucked and whinnied, tossing their riders repeatedly to the ground. Future experiments such as Streight's Raid in April 1863 showed that mules and combat did not mix. For steadiness under fire and tractability, only horses would do. 

          “The mules were brought out in great haste, each one shaking his tail as if he knew there was extra duty demanded,” the Hoosier recalled. “Not more than one mule out of sic ever had a man on its back and never wanted to have. The order to mount was given and the bold men and officers each leaped upon his mule, each mule gave a bray, brought his head between his fore feet as his heels flew high in the air, and each man also flew high into the air and flopped down in the mud. The mules wiggled their tails, shook their heads and became as demure as Quakers. The men picked themselves up out of the mud and each went for his mule again and sprang upon their backs. The mules turned a handspring as before, sending the men tumbling into the air. Scarcely a man stuck except those that got on to the saddle mules.”

          Colonel Wilder stood beside hardly able to contain his laughter and frustration at the farce, but it gave him an inspiration. “We had been chasing Morgan’s force which was mounted on the best blooded horses of the South in mule wagons and on foot,” Magee continued. “The Colonel, seeing the futility of such chases, determined we would try and have the brigade mounted so as to travel as rapidly as Morgan could.” The idea was sound, but it was equally obvious that mounting the brigade on mules was not the answer.

Colonel John T. Wilder of the 17th Indiana first gained notoriety for his plucky defense of Munfordville during the summer of 1862 Kentucky campaign. Surrounded by most of Braxton Bragg's army and called upon to surrender, Wilder entered into negotiations with Bragg but proffered so many arguments that an exasperated Bragg finally agreed to allow Wilder to tour his army's lines to be convinced that he was truly surrounded. General Simon Buckner conducted the tour at which point Wilder asked Buckner if in his professional opinion, Wilder should surrender. The garrison at Munfordville did surrender but Wilder made his mark, a citizen soldier rapidly learning the art of war. 

          Wilder’s struggle touched upon a recurrent problem faced by the Federal armies in the West. The Confederate cavalry during the first two years of the war in the West generally ran circles around their Federal opponents. Between John Morgan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Joe Wheeler, Union communications and supplies were under continual threat and the existing Federal cavalry force was both too small and improperly employed to combat the threat. Confederate cavalry operations proved a major factor in deciding the course of the war in the West; by striking at Union positions along the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in the summer of 1862, they were able to halt General Don Carlos Buell’s drive on Chattanooga. With spectacular raids on places such as Murfreesboro in July and at Big South Tunnel in Gallatin during August, Forrest and Morgan made household names of themselves and always seem one step ahead of their Federal pursuers.

          General Rosecrans also had been struggling to correct to issues with the cavalry. His first step was to persuade the War Department to send him General David S. Stanley to take over as the army’s cavalry chief. Stanley’s first tackled the problem of deployment; the army’s cavalry was scattered in small detachments across Tennessee and Stanley directed it to be concentrated into brigades. The infantry commanders resisted this, but eventually Stanley (with Rosecrans’ backing) got his way. Emphasis was placed on acquiring better arms and well as polishing up on saber drill and the cavalry gave a better account of itself during the Stones River campaign. But there was still a long way to go.

Infantrymen transformed: Private Robert W. Bennett of Co. D of the 72nd Indiana on the left wears the typical infantry equipment carried by his regiment for the first months of their service including a Model 1861 .58 caliber Springfield rifle musket. Private John Munson of Co. F of the 72nd Indiana on the right is shown in mid-1863 atop his horse toting his Spencer rifle. It was no easy matter to turn foot-slogging infantrymen into effective horse soldiers. One of the biggest changes for the men was learning how to properly care for their horses and that caring for the horse took precedence over caring for one's self. 

          The biggest problem was there just wasn’t enough cavalry to go around. Rosecrans continually pestered Washington for cavalry reinforcements, but they proved very slow in coming. Horses were also hard to come by. When Wilder approached Rosecrans in January with the idea of mounting his brigade, he met a ready audience. One thing Rosecrans had in abundance was infantry; if he could find a way to utilize them to combat the Confederate cavalry, he was all ears. The method that Wilder proposed to secure mounts for his brigade was simple: impressment from the “disloyal inhabitants” of the region. Wilder sold Rosecrans on the idea and on February 16^th Rosey issued Special Field Order No. 16 directing Wilder to follow through on his plan.

          Wilder and his infantrymen had enlisted to fight as infantry, and now that they were changing their mode of arms, Wilder had the issue put to a vote within the brigade. All of the regiments except the 75^th Indiana voted to go with the change; the 75^th Indiana would depart the brigade in May, replaced by the 123^rd Illinois. The men were adamant: they did not intend to become cavalry- they would move and fight as mounted infantry. In March, they received new hats and uniforms: standard Federal cavalry jackets trimmed in yellow and reinforced trousers. The men promptly tore off the yellow piping on the jackets as is shown on the example shown below.

Private Lemuel B. McClemrock of Co. E of the 72nd Indiana is shown at left wearing one of the modified cavalry shell jackets issued to the brigade in March 1863. The infantrymen removed the yellow piping from the collars of the jackets as one more way to show that they intended to fight as mounted infantrymen, not cavalry. The jacket at right was identified as belonging to a soldier in the 17th Indiana and is now in private hands. 

          Throughout the spring of 1863, Wilder led his men on a series of raids throughout middle Tennessee securing horses for his brigade. The question now turned to armament. In March 1863, the brigade received a supply of hatchets and for a hot minute were known as the Hatchet Brigade, but this would hardly do as a weapon in modern warfare. The men carried a mix of single shot muzzleloading weapons including Austrian Lorenz rifles and Springfields. Solid arms to be sure, but impractical to use while mounted. Wilder felt that to gain a tactical edge on the Confederate cavalry, he needed a handier arm. A few weapons were considered including the 16-shot Henry repeating rifle before Wilder eventually settling on the seven-shot .56 caliber Spencer repeating rifle.

          Christopher M. Spencer, inventor of the Model 1860 Spencer rifle, brought a weapon directly to Murfreesboro in March and put on a firing demonstration for Rosecrans and Wilder. The lever-action gun featured a tubular magazine within the stock that held seven metallic cartridges. To load the weapon, the soldier would move the hammer to the half cock position, then actuate the loading lever which would move a bullet from the magazine into the chamber and seat it into position. The soldier then would manually move the hammer to the fully cocked position then fire. It was an innovative weapon but more importantly the stout lever action gave evidence of being able to withstand the rigors of field use. The rate of fire poured out was simply incredible; a trained soldier could empty his entire magazine in roughly 20 seconds and later accounts showed a rate of fire of nearly 20 rounds a minute. Compared with the two to three shots a minute an infantryman could fire from a muzzle loading rifle musket, this was lightning, indeed.

This well-worn Spencer repeating rifle belonged to Private George Brown of Co. K of the 72nd Indiana and saw much action during the Civil War. The swing swivel shown above the trigger allowed the soldier to attach the weapon to a strap, freeing up both hands.  (Horse Soldier)

Wilder was instantly sold. “I believe them to be the best arm for army use that I have seen,” Wilder wrote enthusiastically. “No line of men who within 50 yards of another force armed with Spencers can either get away alive or reach them with a charge as in either case they are certain to be destroyed by the terrible fire poured from the ranks by cool men thus armed.” Wilder negotiated a $35 price per gun with Spencer and landed upon an unorthodox way to pay for them: self-financing. Turning to banker friends back in Indiana, Wilder persuaded them to put forward the money so that each man would sign a promissory note agreeing to purchase their own gun. Wilder even offered up his home and business as collateral to facilitate the loan; the bankers agreed to execute the loan without the collateral as long as Wilder co-signed which he readily agreed to do. Wilder promptly cut an order for 1,400 Spencer rifles directly from the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company in Massachusetts. Eventually, Wilder and Rosecrans worked out a deal where the War Department paid for the rifles alleviating Wilder’s men from the debt. [At the end of the war, the survivors of the Lighting Brigade had the opportunity to purchase their Spencers for just a few dollars apiece by having the amount deducted from their final settlement payment.]

By May, the new weapons started to arrive in Tennessee and instantly proved a big hit with the men. “It never got out of repair,” Corporal Magee noted. “It was put together entirely with screws and anybody that had sense enough to be a soldier could take one all to pieces and put it all together just as well as the man that made it. When held in the hand at a ready, the weight was exactly balanced between two hands and it was the easiest gun to handle in the manual of arms drill I have ever seen.” Interestingly, the guns also came with a bayonet, one officer citing them as “highly useful part of the repeating rifle.”

An original box of .56 caliber Spencer metallic cartridges. Weather-proof and hardy enough to withstand the jostling of active army life, the .56 caliber also packed a heavy punch. Wilder's men carried upwards of 100 rounds of ammunition between their cartridge boxes and saddle bags when on campaign. To reload, the tubular magazine was withdrawn from the stock and the bullets dropped into the hole. The magazine was then re-inserted and the weapon was ready to go, a vast improvement in reloading time over a single shot muzzleloading rifle musket. 

One issue early on was the shortage of the expensive metallic cartridge ammunition. The biggest advantage offered was that the cartridge was waterproof and sure to fire in any weather conditions, a frequent problem with the paper-wrapped cartridges used by most infantry arms at the time. But at $30 per box of 1,000 rounds, ammunition needed to be carefully husbanded lest the brigade shoot itself right out of business. Regimental commanders issued strict orders prohibiting unnecessary firing “except when positively necessary.”

A .56 caliber Spencer rifle shown with the bayonet and frog.

By early June, Wilder’s foot-slogging infantrymen now found themselves mounted on the best Tennessee horses they could find and armed with superb new repeating arms. Cavalrymen dismissed Wilder’s experiment as “tadpole cavalry,” but morale was high and within weeks the brigade would meet its first test at Hoover’s Gap in one of the opening engagements of the Tullahoma campaign. Here they would earn the nickname as Wilder’s Mounted Lightning Brigade, a sobriquet they would carry for the rest of the war.

Sources:

Baumgartner, Richard A. Blue Lightning: Wilder’s Mounted Infantry Brigade in the Battle of Chickamauga. Huntingdon: Blue Acorn Press, 2007, pgs. 63-64

Magee, Benjamin F. History of the 72^nd Indiana Volunteer Infantry of the Mounted Lightning Brigade. Lafayette: S. Vater & Co., 1882, pgs. 88-89